


Summoning Tricks

by killerqueenRAI



Series: Skyrim AU [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Skyrim Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 19:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8459419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerqueenRAI/pseuds/killerqueenRAI
Summary: All he wanted was to pass his conjuration practical, but now he had a Daedric Prince to deal with a whole lot of stress with zero solutions.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of a series of one-shots I'm writing for a Skyrim AU. Basic notes:
> 
> \- Dipper is a student at the College of Winterhold.  
> \- Dipper is adept at destruction magic, and while he can keep up with most of his classes he is terrible when it comes to mastering conjuration spells.  
> \- Dipper grew up in Solitude but moved to Winterhold when he was sixteen to attend the college and practice his magic.  
> \- Bill is a forgotten Daedric Prince who goes by Cipher. He is the Prince of the Mind who acts as a gateway for dreams and insanity.

Dipper cradled the tankard of tea close to his chest as he made his way towards the library. The cold winds were harsher than usual that day and he wanted to be within the stone walls of the college as quickly as possible and to be able to brush the snow off of his shaking form. He’d been at the Frozen Hearth for the past hour, arguing with the man who’d delivered the items required for his practical exam. Apparently they thought it was fair to charge “weather fees” due to the bitter cold and the snowy trails, but Dipper knew a scam when he saw one. It had come with the territory of living with his great-uncle for the first sixteen years of his life.

 

Thankfully he’d been able to procure the ingredients without too much fuss. The delivery man had seemed a bit disgruntled, claiming he’d never make his way to the winter wasteland Dipper called home ever again. It was a bluff and they both knew it; if the coin was right the man would be back as many times as he needed.

 

Before he’d left the inn he’d asked Dagur for some tea to fill his tankard with before going back out into the storm that was passing through. He knew it’d make reaching the college a hazard, but he had too much studying to get done to stop now. He’d just have to be careful not to fall to his untimely demise on the bridge back to the college. No big deal.

 

When he’d finally made it back he made a beeline towards the main building, the hall of the elements, ready to be hidden away in the library for a few hours. He needed to prepare for his practical if he was ever going to pass his class on conjuration. While his classmates were conjuring flame atronochs and weapons, Dipper could barely bring back the corpse of a dead rabbit. Just the basics were eluding him and he had to prove that he’d reached an intermediate level before he could continue with his classes. The last thing he needed was Phinis breathing down his neck for another semester.

 

Dipper descended the stairs quickly and sighed with relief as he came to the door of the arcanaeum, pushing it open as quietly as possible. Thankfully it was still early enough in the morning that most students hadn’t made their way into the quiet hall. That meant he would be given some peace and quiet to work on his studies. Setting down the parcel he’d received on one of the desks, he began to open it and inspect the contents. It was a wide assortment of everything one would need for conjuring any number of creatures. Looking at the list that had been written down within the parcel, he began to take inventory. Fire and frost salts, some gem stones, and finally what looked to be the heart of some animal or creature, the note did not specify exactly what it was. Based on the size alone he could tell that it wasn’t from any of the typical fauna found throughout Skyrim, but it didn’t look like a human heart either.

 

Dipper placed it to the side as he organized all of his items and opened up his book in the middle of the table. He flipped through the various recipes, trying to find something that would make for an impressive show at his practical. He had a lot of ground to cover and not much time to prepare.

 

“A familiar? No, an astral wolf isn’t going to get me a passing mark… What about a flame atronoch? I have all of the ingredients, but something tells me everyone is going to be summoning atronochs.” Dipper groaned and slammed his book shut. This wasn’t helping him. All of the spells he had were too basic and they were things that everyone had already mastered. He needed something new, something they hadn’t covered yet in class, but what could he do? Looking over his ingredients an idea came to him. Grabbing his satchel, Dipper began to place his ingredients inside, setting them inside gently so as not to damage them. He threw the sack onto his shoulders and made his way out of the arcanaeum.

 

He was headed to the midden.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

 

Dipper didn’t have to wonder why none of the students ever went down into the depths of the midden. If the cobwebs weren’t enough to deter them, the occasional Draugr would be. Thankfully with a simple firebolt most of the creatures that crossed his path fell, and if that wasn’t enough Dipper had a dagger ever present and at the ready. He was thankful that it didn’t take too long to reach the atronoch forge in the midden; it saved him from having to take on too many creatures and exhausting himself before he could even reach the forge.

 

As he came into the room, Dipper took in his surroundings. He’d heard stories of the midden and what it held, but he’d never actually gone down there himself, and as such it was his first time seeing the forge. An offering box lay before him and just past that a lever. First he needed to set up the circle; with a snap of his fingers flames began to rise from the candles that ringed the summoning circle, the light of the candles dancing off the stone walls.

 

It was time to discover something great.

 

Dipper placed his satchel beside the offering box and began to dig around in the bag. He knew which gems to combine with the salts to form an atronoch, but he wanted something better.

 

“I wonder if there’s anything around here that can give me some clues.” Various papers were strewn about the room, likely containing old notes from previous students. It was worth checking some of them over to see what secrets they might hold. Dipper gathered a few of them up, brushing off the dust that had collected on them, and began to read through pages of messy scrawl. Most were just class notes, ranging from basic familiar summonings to beings known as ‘mistmen’ which he had never heard of before, but none of them were helpful to him in any way. That was until he came across a short list.

 

_A skull picked clean,_  
_Meat without rot,_  
_A heart of horrors._

 

While it wasn’t the most descriptive list Dipper had ever seen, it was at least something he could work with.

 

“Alright, well I’ve got some horker meat I was saving for a snack and this heart that I got from the courier, but what about a skull?” That last one might be a problem, but there was always a chance he could find one. After all, at some point someone had needed one for their summoning. Maybe it was a common item for certain spells? He couldn’t be sure, but it was worth a check, and if he remembered correctly he’d seen one on an alchemy station nearby, having not yet been ground down into bone meal. He ventured back out into the hall and snooped around until he came back to the alchemy table and thankfully he’d remembered right. A skull was sitting primed and ready for the taking, which meant he could try the spell.

 

When he returned to the forge he opened the box and began to place the ingredients inside, starting with the skull before setting the horker meat and heart inside. It didn’t seem like the most magical list in the world, and he wasn’t sure if anything would actually come of it, but he was willing to try in hopes of something coming out for him. Sealing the box, Dipper reached for the lever and gave it a harsh tug. A few seconds passed and he released the lever, confusion drawing across his face. Nothing was happening.

 

“You have got to be kidding me…” He pushed the lever back into place and then pulled one more time, and still nothing happened. “I have to be missing something. I knew that list seemed incomplete. Most summoning spells require a stone to complete them. Let’s see what I have.”

 

Digging inside his satchel, Dipper drew out the three stones from inside and turned them over in his hands. The first was a ruby, used in the summoning of a flame atronoch, and the second was a sapphire, used to summon a frost atronoch, but the third was an unknown to him. It was burnt red in color and a perfectly rounded sphere, with runes etched into its surface. He didn’t know what it was used for, but perhaps it would work for his experiment? It was worth a shot, and Dipper opened the offering box to place it inside. Once again he placed his hand on the lever, this time taking a deep breath, before pulling the it.

 

The room was instantly thrown into darkness. Each candle had blown out as soon as the lever was pulled and Dipper gasped in shock. He couldn’t hear anything, not even the draft that seemed to permeate the midden endlessly. Dipper pulled his hand back, away from the lever, and reached towards his dagger. Something wasn’t right and he had no way of telling what had happened. Raising his hand, Dipper summoned a small sphere of magelight and threw it towards the ceiling, illuminating the room to the best of his abilities. At first he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, but then his eyes fell to the oblivion seal in the center of the circle. It began to glow a dark purple, growing brighter and brighter by the second.

 

Dipper raised his dagger into a defensive stance, watching as the bright light grew into something new.

 

“Is that… a portal?” His eyes widened as a purple portal opened before him. In a second he could make out a form within the portal. Whatever it was, it was humanoid in shape, with a thin frame. Slowly it was coming into focus and Dipper could make out more details of it, and as its features came into focus it started to dawn on Dipper just what a mistake he had made. Armor-like flesh in red and black and eyes like soulless pits, complimented by the ever present stench of blood and lilacs. A Daedra.

 

“Well, well, well! It has been too long Mundus, it is good to be back!” As the portal began to disappear and the being stretched its arms overhead and Dipper could hear bones cracking into place. “So who's the mortal who dares to call upon me this time?”

 

“Stay back Daedra! I didn’t mean to summon you, so you can just go back to Oblivion or wherever it is you came from!” Dipper knew he was all talk. A dagger against a Daedra? That wasn’t likely to end well, and even with his destruction magic he wouldn’t be much of a threat.

 

“No can do, kid, not when you were so kind as to summon me here. Just think of all the things we can do now that I’m here!” As soon as the words left his mouth the Daedra had disappeared and Dipper looked all around himself to try and locate the being. He let out a piercing shriek as he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder, and he whipped around to see who stood behind him. The Daedra had reappear, a grin splitting his face and its teeth glinted in the magelight that had yet to fade out. “Wow, so jumpy! You gotta stop being afraid of your new pal, kid. I could be your best friend in the whole of Mundus, you just gotta tell me what you need.”

 

“I _need_ you to leave! If the college finds out I summoned a Daedra I’ll be kicked out! I don’t even know how I summoned you to begin with!” Dipper threw his hands up to his face and groaned. “Can you just kill me or something? This is not what I needed today.”

 

“Yeesh, you say you don’t need help, but then you start asking me to kill you? You must be a master of mixed signals.” The daedra cackled before taking a step closer to Dipper, getting right into his personal space once more. “Listen kid, if you tell me why you summoned me, maybe I can help you so that next time around you don’t summon an all powerful being of Oblivion into your little college dungeon.”

 

“I don’t know, I just…” Dipper took a deep breath and tried to steady himself before he started speaking, “I was trying to summon something that would help me pass my conjuration practical, and I found this note with a list of ingredients. It just so happened that the ingredients mixed with the stone I used resulted in summoning you. Now I have a Daedra to deal with and still no way to pass my practical.”

 

Dipper groaned, too stressed out to properly handle what was going on. If he’d payed more attention in class maybe he’d remember the steps required to banish a Daedra, but it had gone straight over his head, much like the rest of his conjuring lectures had.

 

“Hm, well lucky for you kid that is something I can help you with, so let’s make a deal. I help you become a master of conjuration and you,” The Daedra placed a hand on Dippers chest and smiled, “You help me gain back the respect of my fellow princes. You become my new champion.”

 

“Wait, your fellow princes? So you’re not just some nameless Daedra, you’re—”

 

“The Daedric Prince of the mind, Cipher. I can deliver you to Sheogorath’s realm of madness and I transport people into Vaermina’s dreams and nightmares, but recently they’ve put me on the sideline. They seem to think I’m unnecessary and that’s where you come in!” The Daedra, Cipher, retracted his hand from Dipper’s chest and moved to grab his hand, “You help me gain a few followers, the other princes realize I’m a pretty great guy, and I help you become the best mage this college has. Do we have a deal?”

 

Dipper swallowed harshly. He’d heard too many stories about the champions of Daedras and the terrible fates that befell them. Even if Cipher hadn’t expressly stated it, Dipper knew how his fate would end; upon his death he would be brought to serve the Daedra for all eternity in his plane of Oblivion, like a pet or a slave, depending on the Daedra. At the same time, the knowledge that Cipher had to offer was too good to just pass up. There were things he could learn that even his great uncle Ford may have never known, and just thinking of how he could further his studies with such a well of information was tantalizing to consider.

 

“We have a deal Cipher.” As he said the words a glowing blue light enveloped his hand to seal their deal and Dipper could feel the magic flowing into him, tingles being sent up his fingers. “But I do have a question; how do you plan on teaching me anything? It’s not like I can keep a Daedra in the hall of attainment.”

 

“You just leave that to me. I’ll meet you after your class gets out tonight, just outside the main hall.” And with a wink the Daedra had disappeared, leaving Dipper alone once again in the midden.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

 

“I know that many of you have your conjuration practical tomorrow, so I will keep our class on wards as quick as possible for today. But before that,” Tolfdir nodded his head towards the entrance of hall and all of the students turned to follow his gaze. There stood a young high elf with hair the color of the sun and eyes that glowed gold, with a mischievous gaze lighting his features. He took a few steps towards the students that had gathered in the hall and bowed slightly. “This is William Cipher and he is a new student who has just joined our college. I hope you will all make him feel welcomed. Now, onto our lesson.”

 

As all of the students turned back to focus on Tolfdir’s lesson, Dipper couldn’t take his eyes away from the new student. It couldn’t be _the_ Cipher right? This couldn’t possibly be the Daedric Prince he’d spoken to earlier in the day, but all too soon he was standing beside Dipper with a grin stretched across his face and he whispered,

 

“I hope you’re looking forward to our private lesson later, kid.”


End file.
